John Pogue keeps the Quarantine franchise moving forward, as he transfers the action from the tight confines of a claustrophobic apartment building to the packed isles of a commercial flight. While the trantion from Quarantine to Terminal isnt seamless, its an enjoyable progreson that manages to build upon an already thrilling storyline, and open a whole slew of new posbilities.

For a direct-to-DVD sequel I know, I know, it’s currently receiving an extremely limited theatrical run, Quarantine 2: Terminal, is a serviceable piece of work. Unfortunately, I’m not comfortable dishing out any seriously genuine compliments.

The story feels a bit like Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane, with a bit of the over-the-top humor shelved in favor of a more subtle approach. While Flight is for the most part excluvely limited to the restrictions of an airplane, Q2 spends less than half of its meager 86 minute runtime in the confines of the aircraft. Once the madness erupts, our panicked pilots put us on the ground, and oddly enough, that’s where the story begins venturing in the wrong direction.

The action is rapid, and I really must confess, the film’s first frame is loaded with a respectable dose of tenon. The claustrophobic sensation that the plane’s interior creates works well, and we’re introduced to our focal characters immediately. Unfortunately, these characters aren’t all too memorable, and the majority of them fit the expected cliché mold; fat man too big to fasten his seatbelt; typical tough guy; apparent good guy; troubled youngster devoid of parental guardianship; hormonally driven flight attendants.

On the potive de of things, the storyline itself takes an intriguing turn, and effectively builds upon the tragedies of the first film. In fact, the midflight nightmare unfolds multaneously with the events of the first Quarantine; as this flight takes off, those trapped in the apartment building featured in the original feature are fighting for their lives. It’s a risky twist that pays fair dividends.

There’s a surpring amount of depth to this story, and the few major plot twists, though improbable, aren’t completely out of the realm of reasonability. Surpringly, the extreme revelations are actually quite entertaining, and instead of tarnishing a quality predecessor, they lend credence to some of Quarantine’s bizarre occurrences.

http://youtu.be/0_QXWQHHr7c

To spare spoilers I’ll be as vague as posble; obviously someone onboard this flight is connected to the apartment building. It should go without saying that this individual manages to bring the virus onto the plane, and all hell breaks loose. But when we find out who the mystery man or woman is, and this individual’s precise role in the tuation onboard and off, it alters the overall scope of Quarantine’s original story, and opens up some new franchise posbilities, which I personally found damn intriguing.

Despite a reasonably strong launch point, the tenon dwindles in the film’s final act, as a locale shift from the plane to the quarantined baggage docks of an airport seems to disrupt the mood of the film, and ultimately looks a tad cheap; Instead of shifting from fourth gear to fifth in a shiny Porsche, we downshift from fourth to third gear in an unstable Gremlin.A select few performers handle their material well, but honestly, screenwriter John Pogue surpringly, condering his credentials doesn’t give many of the primary characters too much to work with. Among those who offer quality performances are Mercedes Masöhn Jenny, Josh Cooke Henry, Lynn Cole Bev and the young Mattie Liptak George. Above and beyond that, there aren’t too many others worthy of big compliments.

I can’t really compare Quarantine 2 to

2 the original Spanish feature

provided the source material for the American reboot Quarantine, in case you’ve somehow missed that bit of info as I must confess to thus far misng

2. From what I understand, the films differ dramatically, which I find strange condering how faithful Quarantine acted to . Having said that, I’m eager to catch

2, as Quarantine 2 wasn’t a let-down, it just wasn’t the gnificant success I’d hoped for.